34                                      Dallas Pratt

Two letters in the collection relate to the Jacobite cause. The
first, though undated, must ha\e been written shortly after the
death of Queen .Mary in 1694. It is written to Sarah's "uncle,"
otherwise unidentified, and contains a tcference to Sarah's sis¬
ter. This was Frances Jennings, whom James II unsuccessfully
tried to seduce when she was his wife's maid of honor. (He had
more success with .Marlborough's sister Arabella Churchill, who
bore him a son, created Duke of Berwick.) The virtuous Fran¬
ces's second husband was a Jacobite general, the Duke of Tyr-
connel, who died in 1691, and the widowed Duchess thereupon
joined the court of Saint Germains. Sarah .Marlborough wrote
to their uncle: "I ha\e sent you three dozen and three pair of
gloves which I desire you will try to get the gentleman (you
said was going to France) to carry with him. He will find no
difficulty at the Custom House here if his things are to be seen,
but in France those sort of things are forbid and therefore 1
trouble you with them because I can't send them as one does
other goods that one may have in that country for paying for.
But I conclude they are not so exact but that a gentleman may
carry anything of that nature and they won't dispute it. They
must be given to Madame Dumene, without naming my sister
at all, and if it be as easy to you I believe it will be best not to
name me to the gentleman you give 'em to, who I conclude you
know enough to ask such a favor from; but if he won't undertake
it I desire you would be pleased to let the gloves be sent again
to my porter as St. James's and I must try to find some other
opportunity of sending them." (Ci).

Sir Winston Churchill' seizes on this letter as Exhibit A to
prove that the real character of the Marlboroughs' connection
with Saint Germains at a time of renewed Jacobite plotting was
of a domestic and family nature rather than conspiratorial. He
believes that some of the documents which seem to implicate
Marlborough in plots to restore James II are Jacobite forgeries.
 

■ 111 .VtarUwroui^h, bis Life nvd Times. New York, Charles Scril)ner'.s Sons, 1935.